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Designer Dick | 10 comments

[new] from whom to whom for what? (Avg. Score: none / Raters: 0) (#3)
by Aileen on Wed Nov 26th, 2003 at 10:59:27 AM EURODISCORDIA TIME
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Since I have always just used a.derieg for my e-mail address, I sometimes find the pseudo-personalized spam messages quite funny, since this name doesn't really work very well for simulating a personal message. More often, though, it makes me angry that my young sons end up feeling a bit spooked by messages that look "real" (e.g. the "Hi Christopher" variety with reference to a fictitious question or conversation), but turn out to be an invitation to visit a crude porn site.
My children have had their own e-mail addresses since they were in kindergarten and essentially learned to read and write in English by using e-mail to stay in contact with friends and family in the US and the UK. How much money can somebody somewhere possibly be making that it is worth rendering e-mail almost useless for personal communication, especially for people who don't have a mental framework to neutralize references to someone else's idiotic fantasies? An idealistic 13-year-old has more important things to think about. So do I, for that matter, and I resent wasting time having to sift through garbarge (even with the anti-spam filter catching such a large portion of it!) to make sure I don't accidentally delete something important. I also resent having to pay for excess traffic when I look at the logfiles and see how much of it is spam.
How does the equation garbage = money work? Who does it work for? All the various filtering and blocking attempts seem to just create more work and more hassle. If "they" can reach me, why can't I reach "them" to retaliate? There are days when I would love to be able to vent all kinds of aggression in taking vindictive retaliation against spammers.

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Designer Dick | 10 comments

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